If ever Limewire wants to make this branch integrated the way it isdeveloped now, yes it would be a required filter. May be Limewire has its good reasons for doing that, including an injuntion by a court decision that may, if it this is not done in time, cause Limewire to be held responsiple for the copyight infrignements made by the users of its software.
If so, then be prepared with your own lawyers at Frostwire. I am not sure that you'll be able to pay the lawyers to defend yourself.
Seriously, I find it is enough for Limewire to include in the software a way to filter questionable contents, for users that don't want to pay the risk of downloading or uploading contents illegally.
But if this filter is made mandatory for all users, it would mean that Limewire takes the responsaibility of saying to its users what is really legal. Then suppose that a content is labelled with a falsified licence, other users may think the content is legal, so they may trust simply LimeWire for allowing them to do that.
Now suppose that the content is illegal and that user is charged of huge fines or jail sentences because they aheve downloaded or uploaded this content to Gnutella using the LimeWire software, then Limewire may be held responsible as it would have been part of the decision made by the user, thinking that the content was legally downloadable or sharable.
So a part of the responsability would be transfered from the user directly to LimeWire (because it would have given unjustified trust into the legality of the content), and this would be even more dangerous for the survival of Limewire itself.
So I am not convinced that this feature will be mandatory. It may become the default configuration, but users will still have the opportunity to disable it, and users will be informed that LimeWire cannot guarantee that the files that pass through the filter are all legal.
When you look at an existing message in the Limewire MessageBundle, this opinion is stated specifically: it says that LimeWire cannot certify that a content without a licence is legal or not. So this feature will be a help for users, and cannot be used instead of a mature decision by the users themselves.
I would really prefer that LimeWire does not put any nail of a finger, in trying to make the decision about the legality of a content instead of the users themselves.
The role of Limewire is to build a software and a common network, but not to endorse the resposability of the usage made with the software or the network by users. It should really adopt the same policy as telecom companies which coherently deny any implication in the usage of their network for illegal activities.
Then telcos can be forced by law to provide means for law enforcement organisms to allow investigation, after a law has been voted and entered into application that force them to provide such mean, but telcos themselves are still not reponsible of illagal acticities made by their subscribers.
The same applies to audio and video recorders, manufacturers of content supports (audio/video tapes, hard disks, and now flash memories as well): their commerce is legal, and none of these manufacturers are responsible of illegal use of their product.
On the opposite, I see good points in promoting the use of free licences on Gnutella. It demonstrates that the Gnutella is not made only to provide illegal contents, and it gives legitimacy to the existence of P2P networks. For this reason, LimeWire is making a legitimate business by making a software and network that allows performing useful and legal activities on a P2P network.
With this demonstration, the Gnutella network becomes much more legal and has a right of existence. The orgnizations and people that make, build or promote Gnutella softwares are then doing legitimate business, and all the illegal aspect of its use is transfered to its users, like for the telephone network which is a useful public commons since long.
Last edited by verdyp; October 22nd, 2005 at 01:35 PM.
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